Grey makes for homesickness. It took a few weeks to figure out why exactly, puddles dotted with mother-of-pearl oil and the hyper orange of leaves under murky skies made me long for the West again. Topography. The cold river. I cleaned my closet and found them all: letters and cards, notes from people now far from me. An old notebook from class. A broken promise or two—not unexpected. I laughed at my tears, delayed for three years for the Spartan cottage and stupid town and too much gin and brief time I wasn’t a fuckup.
I remember lights. My words for them are stupid: they really were just like stars or sparks on all the trees and buildings. I saw them for the first time from inside a hatchback trunk. The taxi didn’t know how many of us were waiting at the Greyhound station. He didn’t charge me. The city lit them up over Thanksgiving weekend and they were always off by the time I finished my shifts.
Work. I’m still bending towards day the way plants do or maybe how vines grow into brick and erode them into red dust, collecting in my basement. I may always be adjusting from a life away from night. I may always be traveling through the dark. I think about my life before here and I am hatless in the rain. I hate myself. I look through my notes from the time before and find cubes in the margins. Little boxes.
My friend’s statuses are filled with grainy photos of Might Becomes. They write to me, quiet and terrified at heartbeats. Some admit things they should not, fiddle with rings when they do, nervous and sad.
I have a meeting this week to see if they will let me in the program I moved here for. Not even the pills keep the critic away: you fucking fraud. We’ll see, I guess. Sometimes little lights break through. I will string them up on sticks and hope they grow inside my house. They will ask me from across a desk: why should we let you in this class? What is it you’ve been writing about? What makes you think you even deserve to be here?
I am not sure what to tell them. I suppose I will think of something.